ConseCrate

Reflections on Shuffle-Play

Adventure of a Lifetime – Coldplay

This is my favorite song to run to lately – and especially a remix of the song I found on Spotify – the “Matoma” remix. I wasn’t a fan of Coldplay until this song – although I had a mild affection for “Viva la Vida.” “Adventure of a Lifetime” made me pay attention to them for the first time. I was so excited when they were going to be on the Superbowl halftime show that I made special snacks just for halftime – because of course, I never watch the actual game. I’ll post a video of the performance from the halftime show because it’s much better than the actual video for this song.

“We are diamonds taking shape,” Chris sings, and this is most certainly true. Whether we are brand new in an endeavor or if we have been working on a task, a career, a goal for years, we are in the process of being refined. When a person is just starting out, the world seems to take joy in helping refine you, smooth out your rough edges with their words of advice and/or criticism. As time goes by, we need to learn how to do more of that for ourselves – seek out change and challenges – because people begin to assume we know what we are doing and we do, too. We can positively lull ourselves to sleep in our own lives if we stay with the same way of doing and being for too long.

“Don’t live the same year 75 times and call it a life.”
― Robin S. Sharma

“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”

― Mary Oliver

Earlier today I went to a large meeting with a bunch of other pastors. Sometimes I hate those meetings. I have usually thought I feel that way because I am an introvert – but truthfully, it is fun seeing many of the people. I think what I don’t like is how I immediately start comparing myself with the other people there. My mind wanders from the speaker to wondering if I look more interesting than this person or as smart as that person. I look in awe at many of the young pastors who seem so self-assured, so deftly competent in ways I surely wasn’t early on (or still am not). I look with fear at some of the older pastors who look so tired and weary to the bone. I know I am somewhere in the middle. Definitely not new at this, but not nearly done. Still a diamond taking shape. Not as rough as I once was, but all my sparkle is not yet revealed either.

I left the meeting feeling unsettled. I didn’t like the way that being around all those other people made me think differently about life and work. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get my focus back to the place it was before, but something had shifted. New ideas had emerged. New insights were bubbling. Being around other people does that – and of course, that is the point. That is the reason they stir us pastors out of our own churches and into groups together sometimes – so we can learn and grow together in new ways that we don’t when we are off by ourselves and our own congregations. This learning and growth is not always fun. I’m much more a fan of my own thoughts and ways than of those of other people…but indulging myself in too much of that is a quick way to stagnation.

My father did that. He hated being around other people so much that he shut himself away in a house for forty years. Nothing uncomfortable could touch him there, but of course, nothing good could touch him either. His happiness and peace shrank to the smallest bits while his anger and animosity grew. He was so immensely stuck that his stagnation became the very thing that defined him. It was the saddest thing I ever saw.

“Adventure Of A Lifetime”
Turn your magic on
Umi she’d say
Everything you want’s a dream away
And we are legends every day
That’s what she told me

Turn your magic on,
To me she’d say
Everything you want’s a dream away
Under this pressure, under this weight
We are diamonds

Now I feel my heart beating
I feel my heart underneath my skin
And I feel my heart beating
Oh, you make me feel
Like I’m alive again
Alive again
Oh, you make me feel
Like I’m alive again

Said I can’t go on,
Not in this way
I’m a dream that died by light of day
Gonna hold up half the sky and say
Only I own me

And I feel my heart beating
I feel my heart underneath my skin
Oh, I can feel my heart beating
‘Cause you make me feel
Like I’m alive again
Alive again
Oh, you make me feel
Like I’m alive again

Turn your magic on,
Umi she’d say
Everything you want’s a dream away
Under this pressure under this weight
We are diamonds taking shape
We are diamonds taking shape

If we’ve only got this life
This adventure, oh, then I
And if we’ve only got this life
You get me through

And if we’ve only got this life
In this adventure, oh, then I
Want to share it with you
With you
With you
Yeah I do